“Why I can’t forget when I wish or help being hard?”
“Yes, when you have such infinite possibilities now.”
“Now,” supplemented the man evenly, “when society at large couldn’t pound me down any longer or prevent my getting out of their power.”
The girl did not answer.
Deliberately Roberts sat up; no longer listless or tolerantly self-analytic, but very wide awake, very direct.
“I’ll have to tell you a few more reasons, then; read between the lines a bit. I never did this before to any one; never will again—to any one. But I must make you understand what made me as I am. I must; you know why. Tell me to stop when you wish, I’ll obey gladly; but don’t tell me you don’t understand. 262
“To begin again at the beginning. My parents abandoned me. Why? They were starved to it, forced to it. Self-preservation is the first law. I don’t clear them, but I understand. They were starving and irresponsible. I merely paid the price of relief, the price society at large demanded.
“At the first home I had afterward the man drank,—drank to forget that he, too, was an under dog. Some one again must pay the price, and I paid it. Now and then I’d succeed in selling a few papers, or do an errand, and earn a few pennies. After the manner of all lesser animals I’d try to hide with them; but he’d find me every time. He seemed to have a genius for it. He’d whip me with whatever was handy; at first for trying to hide, later, when I wouldn’t cry, because I was stubborn. Finally, after he’d got tired or satisfied, he’d steal my coppers and head for the nearest bar. Once in January I remember a lady I met on the street took me into a store and bought me a new pair of shoes. I hid them successfully for a week. One day he caught me with them on—and pawned them.
“The old farmer the charity folks traded me to was a Lutheran. Every morning after breakfast 263 he read prayers. He never missed a day. Then he’d send me out with one of his sons,—a grown-up man of twenty-two,—and if I didn’t do exactly as much work as the son I went hungry until I got it done if it took half the night. He also had a willow sapling he relied upon when hunger didn’t prove effective. He’d pray before he used that too,—pray with one hand gripping my neckband so I couldn’t get away. I earned a dollar a day—one single solitary dollar—when I was logging oak in the Ozarks. Day after day when we were on the haul I used to strap myself fast to the load to keep from going to sleep and rolling off under the wheels. I got so dead tired that I fell asleep walking, when I did that to keep awake. You won’t believe it, but it’s true. I’ve done it more than once.
“I was sick one day in the coal mine, deathly sick. The air at times was awful. I laid down just outside the car track. I thought I was going to die and felt distinctly pleased at the prospect. Some one reported me to the superintendent. He evidently knew the symptoms, for he came with a pail of water and soaked me where I lay, marked time, and went away. I laid there for three hours in a puddle of water 264 and soft coal grime; then I went back to work. I know it was three hours because my time check was docked exactly that much.